When was the Mongol Empire?
The Mongol Empire lasted from 1206 CE, when Genghis Khan unified the Mongol tribes, to approximately 1368, when the Yuan Dynasty (the last major khanate) fell to Chinese rebellion. The empire was effectively unified only until the 1260s, after which it fragmented into four rival khanates.
The Mongol Empire's timeline spans roughly 160 years, though its period of genuine unity was much shorter. The key dates mark a trajectory from explosive expansion to gradual fragmentation.
The empire was officially founded in 1206, when a great assembly (kurultai) of Mongol tribes proclaimed Temüjin as Genghis Khan — 'Universal Ruler.' The subsequent decades were the era of spectacular conquest: the Khwarezmian Empire was destroyed (1219–1221), northern China was conquered (1211–1234), and Mongol armies pushed into Russia, Persia, and the Middle East.
Genghis Khan's death in 1227 did not immediately fragment the empire. Under his successor Ögedei Khan (r. 1229–1241), expansion continued: the Jin Dynasty fell, Europe was invaded (Hungary and Poland were devastated in 1241), and the empire's administrative systems were formalized. The death of Ögedei — which recalled Mongol armies from Europe — was one of history's most consequential events.
The empire began to fracture after the 1260s, when a civil war between Kublai Khan and his brother Ariq Böke ended unified governance. Four successor khanates emerged: the Yuan Dynasty in China (fell 1368), the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia (fragmented by the 1340s), the Ilkhanate in Persia (collapsed 1335), and the Golden Horde in Russia (gradually weakened, last remnant fell 1502).
The Yuan Dynasty's overthrow by the Ming in 1368 is conventionally taken as the end of the Mongol Empire, though Mongol successor states persisted for centuries. The Golden Horde's influence in Russia lasted until 1480, and the Chagatai legacy was inherited by Timur (Tamerlane) and eventually the Mughal Empire in India.